Children's tractability
236:21 Children should obey their parents; insubordination
is an evil, blighting the buddings of self-government.
Parents should teach their children at the
236:24 earliest possible period the truths of health
and holiness. Children are more tractable than adults,
and learn more readily to love the simple verities that will
236:27 make them happy and good.
Jesus loved little children because of their freedom
from wrong and their receptiveness of right. While
236:30 age is halting between two opinions or battling with
false beliefs, youth makes easy and rapid strides towards
Truth.
237:1 A little girl, who had occasionally listened to my ex-
planations, badly wounded her finger. She seemed not
237:3 to notice it. On being questioned about it she answered
ingenuously, "There is no sensation in matter." Bound-
ing off with laughing eyes, she presently added, "Mamma,
237:6 my finger is not a bit sore."
Soil and seed
It might have been months or years before her parents
would have laid aside their drugs, or reached the mental
237:9 height their little daughter so naturally at-
tained. The more stubborn beliefs and theo-
ries of parents often choke the good seed in the minds of
237:12 themselves and their offspring. Superstition, like "the
fowls of the air," snatches away the good seed before it
has sprouted.
Teaching children
237:15 Children should be taught the Truth-cure, Christian
Science, among their first lessons, and kept from discuss-
ing or entertaining theories or thoughts about
237:18 sickness. To prevent the experience of error
and its sufferings, keep out of the minds of your children
either sinful or diseased thoughts. The latter should
237:21 be excluded on the same principle as the former. This
makes Christian Science early available.
Deluded invalids
Some invalids are unwilling to know the facts or to
237:24 hear about the fallacy of matter and its supposed laws.
They devote themselves a little longer to their
material gods, cling to a belief in the life and
237:27 intelligence of matter, and expect this error to do more
for them than they are willing to admit the only living and
true God can do. Impatient at your explanation, unwill-
237:30 ing to investigate the Science of Mind which would rid
them of their complaints, they hug false beliefs and suffer
the delusive consequences.